![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59(This post contains some discussion of rape and sexual assault but does not go into any specifics)
There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.
Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.
And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.
Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.
There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over £40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.
Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.
In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.
Footnotes
[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like
(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)
(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.
In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.
Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that
There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.
Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.
And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.
Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.
There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over £40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.
Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.
In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.
Footnotes
[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like
This one does a pretty good job of taking apart the Koss / Ms. Magazine study, which is the source for the "1 in 4" number. For example, it points out that over half of those cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercionis difficult to read in any way other than "Half of the people you're counting as having been raped haven't really been raped", and favourably referring to an article that asserts that the rate of false rape reports is probably close to 50% is pretty strong support for the idea that many rape victims are liars.
(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)
(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.
In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.
Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that
Also found in the Koss study, although not widely reported, was the statistic that of the women whom she classified as being raped (although 73% refused to self-classify the event as rape), 46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant. Ted disagrees with a statistic because some rape victims subsequently have sex with the reported assailant. This means that Ted believes that this indicates that they were not really raped. Ted is a rape apologist.)
My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-04 06:48 pm (UTC)"Ted called rape victims liars"
This is false. He questioned some statistics, without making any such general claim. Also, it's rather ironic that the feminist side here then complained about how Ted's mail (the one linked next to this "liars" claim in Matthew Garrett's post) cited a statistic of the majority of the women in a study not themselves classifying the events as rape. In other words, *they* claimed that the women must be denying the truth or intentionally lying, while Ted did not claim that...
"Ted claimed that rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough"
This is false. This lie seems to have been spread by Valerie Aurora. Ted did not claim rape is impossible if both are drunk enough. He was commenting on a claim that sex is always rape if there was no clear informed consent, and noted things can not be quite this simple: two people may have sex while both are drunk beyond the limit of informed consent, and in this symmetrical situation you either have to say that neither was raped despite lack of informed consent, or say that both were rapists themselves. Ted's claim is obviously true.
"Ted thinks rape is the victim's fault, not the rapist's"
This is false. These claims seem to be based on Ted's mail saying "regardless of whether Alice is guilty of raping Bob (assume that Bob was inebriated and couldn't give consent, and she knew that Bob was drunk), should Bob be faulted for putting him into a situation where he was so drunk that he couldn't take responsibility for himself?". Some people have interpreted this to mean Alice was not at fault; this interpretation is false (note the "regardless of whether Alice is guilty"). Ted is in no way condoning the actions of the rapist; he's saying that people who incapacitate themselves by drinking too much may be faulted if they then suffer harm, even if that harm involved a crime by another person. This is an opinion people may disagree with, but it's hardly a rare one, and not specific to rape (even if you think he's wrong, "rape apologist" is certainly not an appropriate label for people disagreeing with you).
"Ted questioned what should be called rape, so he must be against sentencing anyone as a rapist"
This is obviously false as phrased, yet there were various claims that essentially boil down to this. Some people seem to think that any discussion of gray areas (or terminology) is in itself harmful - they want to represent things as simple black and white. But that attitude is dishonest; gray areas do exist. There seems to be little substance to the claims that Ted would have actually said anything unacceptable about this, other than that he discussed gray areas at all.
"Whatever the details of what Ted actually said, the discussion was derailed after his posts, so he's guilty"
So Ted's posts did not help the feminist crowd push their agenda. Regardless of whether this "derailing" is true, and who was to blame for it, this does not justify Valerie Aurora's and Matthew Garrett's attempts to intentionally harm Ted's public reputation. I hope nobody seriously thinks it's OK for them to attack Ted and label him a "rape apologist" just because he's not helping them push their views.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-04 08:19 pm (UTC)"Ted called rape victims liars"
Ted directly links to and endorses a document that claims the rate of false rape reports is close to 50%. That's not questioning statistics. That's supporting an assertion that almost half of reported rapes are made up. Ted supports the claim that many people who claim to have been raped are lying.
"Ted thinks rape is the victim's fault, not the rapist's"
Ted thinks that, under certain circumstances, rape is partly the victim's fault. Ted blames victims.
"Ted questioned what should be called rape, so he must be against sentencing anyone as a rapist"
Ted clearly questioned whether some cases classified as rape should be classified as rape, in one case on the grounds that some victims later had sex with their attacker. Ted is a rape apologist.
Ted's public reputation is harmed by his own actions, not by mine.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-05 01:52 pm (UTC)It states that 50% of events qualified as "rape" by a particular researcher, were not qualified as such by the women involved. In doing so, it puts into question a concrete research method but not the victims' claims. It does not say in any way that "many people who claim to have been raped are lying".
It does say, however, that many people that claim to *not* have been raped were classified otherwise by a particular researcher. So, if anything, it is giving the women's claims more credibility than the researcher's.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-05 02:00 pm (UTC)From the article I linked to. It's explicitly and clearly saying that many people who claim to have been raped are lying.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-06 09:14 am (UTC)I think your post is dishonest here on many levels. What the document actually says is "the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent". This talks about the contents of another book, and it's not clear which class of "reports" is meant here, so I won't comment on the plausibility of these numbers. But even assuming the 50% side would be implausibly high, I think it's quite far-fetched to claim that linking to a document which contains this number would justify the description "calls rape victims liars".
The feminist side has made quite a lot of totally implausible claims. I think it would be quite a double standard to be OK with these, but strongly condemn even linking to a document which contains a claim you think is false.
You're yourself "linking to and endorsing" the Ada Initiative post by Valerie Aurora. This post contains among others the "rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough" claim, which is fairly easy to verify to be false; she links to the mail this claim is supposedly based on, and it's easy to verify that it does not contain what she claims it does. I don't think this could be a honest mistake; it's obvious enough that in my opinion she should have noticed it if she did a check as thorough as I would consider responsible behavior before making such public accusations. I could have believed it was, if not an honest mistake, then at least still A mistake due to being blinded by ideology and misinterpreting Ted's mails by assuming they must say what she expected according to "enemy" stereotypes as soon as she disagreed with him; but if so, she should have become aware of her mistake by now, yet she still continues spreading this claim. Valerie Aurora is a liar. Is your linking to her any less condemnable?
Obviously saying some reports are false means saying that the women in question are not actually rape victims, not that rape victims are lying. You could make arguments like "but if you estimate the portion of false reports too large then you'll necessarily include some true reports in that portion, and thus incorrectly count people making true reports as making false ones"; but IMO it's dishonest to make further deductions of what would follow from the original claim and then say "Ted claimed (deduction you made starting from what was actually said)", especially if your deductions *assume* the original claim was false. You can logically prove anything starting from a contradiction, so you could just as well say "Ted claimed he is the pope".
It's a fact that a non-negligible portion of reports are false. When estimating the percentage, what number do you consider the minimum value that would justify personal attacks (rather than just saying that you think it is too high)?
"Ted thinks that, under certain circumstances, rape is partly the victim's fault. Ted blames victims."
This "blaming the victim" meme seems to be some kind of trigger for quite a few people here, so that as soon as you think it remotely matches a situation you think that's a valid reason to throw away all rationality and objectivity and move to "Burn the witch! Burn the witch!". In my opinion it's completely ridiculous to take it to the level where no negative comments whatsoever are allowed about someone if he or she has become the victim of a crime. Ted did not say "partly the victim's fault" in the sense "she made the rapist do it, he is less guilty" (which several people seem to confuse his comments with). He did say you could perhaps be faulted if you drink too much, incapacitate yourself and then become a crime victim. Would you still object to this attitude equally strongly if it appeared in context that doesn't involve rape and involves drugs less socially acceptable than alcohol? Say a heroin addict receives contaminated needles or bad dope from someone. How large a portion of the population do you think would say he's not to blame for his injury in any way?
"Ted clearly questioned whether some cases classified as rape should be classified as rape"
I think it's quite valid to question whether all the cases where the "victim" did not herself consider it a rape, and did not consider herself to have suffered significant harm, should be classified as "rape". In any case, this is ultimately just a question of terminology, and I don't think you should strongly morally condemn someone for preferring one kind of terminology over another. Sure, it's easier to discourage some behavior you want discouraged if you can attach a label with strong existing negative connotations like "rape" to it. But I do not think that makes it a moral imperative for everyone to support such use of terminology.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-06 01:11 pm (UTC)Say the actual number of false accusations is between 2% and 8% (the low and high end of any vaguely reasonably performed studies, with the 8% being towards the unreasonably performed studies end of that scale). If you then claim that between 9% and 50% of accusations are false, you're saying that some people who were actually raped were not actually raped.
. Yeah, easily verified to be false.
You're welcome to your opinion, but it sounds like you're admitting that Ted places some of the blame on the victim.
Could you please read what you're replying to? The 46% figure is not limited to the 73% who didn't self-classify their attack as rape. It includes women who claimed they were raped, Ted just thinks that they weren't.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-06 08:22 pm (UTC)I think my above post already adequately explained why it's quite a stretch to go from linking to a document which mentions such numbers, even if you believe them to be false, to "called rape victims liars".
"Yeah, easily verified to be false."
Yes, if you're willing to read it honestly. Did you read the explanation in my first "My overall take on the discussion" post? I wonder what more to say if you read that but still fail to understand. I think it should be quite obvious if you're willing to read the post without preconceived notions of what you think it must be saying.
The context is that Ted was replying to a mail claiming that sex without informed consent would always be rape. He considered consequences of this "definition of rape" by applying it to different example cases ("thought experiment" as his mail said). The "So if both Alice and Bob were drunk, there's no rape that has taken place, in either direction" sentence refers to one particular "thought experiment" case, which demonstrates that the suggested "definition of rape" is flawed, as it would produce absurd results.
So Ted was NOT saying "ALL cases where both people are drunk are not rape", but "there EXISTS AN example case with both people drunk (and not capable of giving informed consent), but where there is no rape". And this example case was relevant to the discussion as it served as a counterexample to the proposed definition.
"it sounds like you're admitting that Ted places some of the blame on the victim"
He was willing to criticize someone even if they are a victim. I would not use the phrasing "some of the blame", as to me that seems to incorrectly suggest there is some overall "the blame" to allocate, and criticizing someone would imply blaming others (such as the criminal) less. I think my above post already adequately explains my view on what his attitude is.
"46% figure"
I didn't look up what exactly you're referring to here.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-06 08:59 pm (UTC)Some proportion of women have been raped. Some much smaller proportion make false rape claims. If you believe that the number of false rape claims is larger than the actual number of false rape claims then you are saying that some of those actual victims are lying. Ted endorses an article that explicitly makes this claim.
Actually, yes, he is saying that. He says that if you're too drunk to know that the other party can't provide consent, it can't be rape. He says it very clearly.
(ie, yes, Ted places blame on the victim)
You didn't read what you were replying to? Strong work. Full marks.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-07 12:08 am (UTC)By this logic, if you believe that the number of false claims is smaller than the actual number of false rape claims then you are saying that some innocent people are lying and calling them rapists. So unless you get the number exactly correct you're being horribly offensive. This logic is obviously bullshit. And all the other reasons from my earlier post why your statement was dishonest still apply.
"He says that if you're too drunk to know that the other party can't provide consent, it can't be rape"
In the part you're referring to now, he's saying that's how the real law resolves the "two equally drunk people having sex, while too drunk to give informed consent" issue. In other words, that's answering the question "why does real law not define both as rapists, like the proposed flawed definition of rape would?". If you take the "rapist has to know" part out of context and apply it to other cases, you could interpret it as saying that you can do whatever you want without legal consequences as long as you're drunk enough, but it should be obvious that's not what he meant (especially given his attitude towards alcohol elsewhere in the mail). Nor does that interpretation match what Valerie Aurora claimed.
"ie, yes, Ted places blame on the victim"
Yes, in the sense that Ted is willing to criticize someone even if that someone is a victim. If you think fact alone is hugely significant I think it's your attitude that is ridiculous.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-07 03:05 pm (UTC)Yes, if you believe that the actual number of false rape claims is smaller than the number that are classified as false, you clearly believe that some people who are considered innocent are actually rapists. How is that obviously bullshit?
Note his lack of citations. However, you don't actually seem to be disagreeing that Ted said that it's not rape if both people are drunk enough that they are unable to know that the other party is too drunk to give consent.
Great. You agree that Ted is a victim blamer. You just don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's a logically consistent position for you to take, but it's not what you said originally.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-07 08:25 pm (UTC)No, smaller than the ACTUAL number of false rape claims. The exact SAME reference number you used (I used the exact same phrasing to describe the number...), not some different "classified as false" by some non-omniscient classifier. So you accuse INNOCENT people of being rapists, not people who were (possibly incorrectly) categorized as innocent by some imperfect agent.
"How is that obviously bullshit?"
What's bullshit is the claim that if you mention any estimate of a percentage, you're personally attacking someone unless your estimate is exactly correct.
"Note his lack of citations"
I don't know US law well enough to comment on whether his interpretation of it is correct. Either way it's not something morally objectionable.
"you don't actually seem to be disagreeing that Ted said that it's not rape if both people are drunk enough that they are unable to know that the other party is too drunk to give consent.
In his symmetrical example case where both are equally drunk and without anything else creating asymmetry, he believes that neither is a rapist (rather than the other logically possible alternative, saying that both are guilty of rape). I don't believe he'd extend that to all cases with both people drunk beyond a certain level; you could introduce asymmetries that would change the situation. For an extreme example, suppose that one side was completely passed out in his/her own room, and a stranger walked in. I'm quite sure he'd consider sex in that situation to be rape no matter how drunk the stranger was.
Great. You agree that Ted is a victim blamer.
I consider the use of this magical "victim blamer" label to be ridiculous. On one hand, the criteria to apply it are very lax; it can be applied to anyone who does not consider everyone qualifying as a "victim" to be totally immune from any criticism whatsoever. On the other hand, the label is considered damning - once you've labeled someone, that's enough to show they must be a horrible person.
"it's not what you said originally
I stand by what I said in the first post in this subthread, and I can't see why you'd think my position has changed (or how).
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-07 09:11 pm (UTC)He's supporting a claim that close to 50% of rape accusations are false. The most rigorous numbers suggest that the actual number is 2%, and with fuzzier definitions you get to 8%. Are you entirely unable to see why this is objectionable?
"the rapist has to know that the the other person was not able to give
legal consent" - so sure, if there's a level of drunkenness that prevents you from knowing that an unconscious individual is failing to provide informed consent, Ted doesn't think that it's rape.
My apologies - you're right. You were disagreeing with something that nobody had actually said.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-07 11:10 pm (UTC)If you can show that the numbers are likely false, then you do of course have a valid reason to object to their use. But that's not the same as justifying your "calls rape victims liars" claims.
"if there's a level of drunkenness that prevents you from knowing that an unconscious individual is failing to provide informed consent, Ted doesn't think that it's rape"
His explanation of how the law would treat the symmetric case looks incomplete (or inaccurate), as it leaves open the question why the answer to that case would not then generalize into a more general "drunk people are not responsible for their actions" principle. As I wrote in an earlier post: 'If you take the "rapist has to know" part out of context and apply it to other cases, you could interpret it as saying that you can do whatever you want without legal consequences as long as you're drunk enough, but it should be obvious that's not what he meant (especially given his attitude towards alcohol elsewhere in the mail).'.
So there's a sentence in his post that in isolation could be interpreted to mean that if a person is drunk enough then he's not responsible for his actions. But overall it's not plausible to consider this an accurate interpretation of his real views, because the sentence occurs within the explanation of the more limited symmetric case, and because it would be inconsistent with the negative view toward alcohol use that he clearly expressed elsewhere in the mail. Note that even if taken in isolation, the sentence would not match Valerie Aurora's claims ("rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough").
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-08 01:49 am (UTC)There are studies that claim to clearly demonstrate that the number of people murdered in the holocaust was significantly smaller than the consensus figures. We call people who cite those numbers holocaust deniers. If you cite numbers that say that the proportion of false rape accusations could be up to 50%, despite there not being a single well-supported figure that puts the number above 8% (and many which put it well below that), you're denying reality. You're explicitly saying that many people who report rape are lying about it. And since all the worthwhile evidence says that the majority of those people have actually been raped, you're saying that some people who have actually been raped are lying about it.
If both people are drunk enough that they are simultaneously able to give consent and unable to determine that the other person is unable to give consent, Ted's example says that it's not rape. That's another way of saying "rape is impossible if both people are drunk enough".
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-08 09:28 pm (UTC)I already explained the problem with this argument: it'd always apply (either you're calling victims liars, or you're calling innocent people rapists) unless your estimate of the percentage was exactly correct.
I'd consider any global false-report numbers a lot less certain than evidence for holocaust. Also, "holocaust denial" is normally used to mean more than just a significantly different estimate of how efficiently the Nazis managed to carry out their extermination campaign; it means questioning the existence of such an intentional campaign. A comparison to "holocaust deniers" is silly (I guess Godwin's law applies by this point).
"If both people are drunk enough that they are simultaneously able to give consent and unable to determine that the other person is unable to give consent, Ted's example says that it's not rape."
No, he did NOT make any such claims about all possible cases which match "both are drunk". He was talking about an example case where the situation is symmetric. I have already addressed that point before. You seem to arguing something along the lines of "but I can add things to his example that he didn't explicitly rule out, and then it no longer works". He didn't add disclaimers like "... and there is nothing else making the situation asymmetric", but his example was clear enough without those.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-08 09:47 pm (UTC)Yes, and so if I make assertions about the rate then I should have good confidence that the figures I'm quoting are accurate representations of reality. Basically nobody with any experience of the topic has confidence that of rape reports are false. Except, it seems, Ted.
I don't think the evidence agrees with you:
He clearly states that someone must know that the other person is unable to give legal consent before it's rape.
He then proceeds to give an example of where both parties are drunk enough to be unable to know that consent hasn't been given, and claims that it's therefore not rape. His argument isn't based on symmetry. His argument is based entirely on the claim that the law says you have to be aware that consent hasn't been granted. You're reading things into Ted's writing that aren't actually present or implied.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 12:18 am (UTC)The correct order is
1) the symmetric case with Alice and Bob is brought up FIRST
2) talk about how he thinks real law would handle this case ("Now, actually, the way the law works", in contrast to the alternatives like "rape each other" mentioned just before).
3) the "So if both Alice and Bob were drunk" you quoted is just a reference back to 1, not a general statement about every possible case where both partners are drunk.
The rest has already been addressed in my previous comments.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 01:08 am (UTC)Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 01:25 am (UTC)This post (http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/18505.html?thread=735817#cmt735817)
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 01:59 am (UTC)Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 02:27 am (UTC)I'm saying that specifically his "the rapist has to know that the the other person was not able to give legal consent" is too vague, and it's very unlikely he meant that the inability to understand consent would automatically exclude someone from all responsibility. Note that the literal interpretation would not justify Valerie Aurora's description either.
"and you're justifying this via various suppositions that don't obviously follow from what he did write"
My view is justified by a lot more than just "various suppositions", including:
- That a drunk enough person could freely rape anyone without legal consequences is ridiculous enough that it's unlikely he'd really mean to say that.
- Interpreting it that way would make the logical structure of his post inconsistent. If he meant such a general principle, why would he only apply it to a case with both drunk? And other similar issues.
- Interpreting it that way would conflict with his other views on alcohol use. Given his other views, it does not look plausible he'd say something like "you were drunk at the time, so it's not your fault".
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 02:53 am (UTC)That's what he said. Despite having had ample opportunity, he hasn't claimed that he's been misinterpreted on that point.
Going back to Ted:
and Valerie:
If both parties are sufficiently drunk that they are unable to know that the other person was not able to give legal consent, a straightforward reading of Ted's claim is that it's not rape. The literal interpretation precisely matches Valerie's description.
It's exactly as ridiculous to claim that it's not rape purely because both parties were too drunk to realise that neither could grant consent.
Where is he only applying it to a case where both parties are drunk? He uses various examples to lead to his conclusion, which is that if you're drunk enough that you can't tell whether someone's given consent, you can't commit rape. It's a single thought experiment, not a series of them. The symmetrical case merely informs the asymmetrical one.
He doesn't say it's ok. He just says it's not rape. There's no conflict with his other views on alcohol consumption.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 04:10 am (UTC)Her description matches it like "he supports voting rights for men of Aryan race" matches "I support universal suffrage". It's a consequence of the literal interpretation, but not an accurate description of it. An accurate description would be something like "one of his comments could be interpreted to mean that he believes drunk enough people are free of all legal responsibility related to rape". Even if you omit the "could be interpreted" part, this description would still make it a lot more obvious that it's unlikely to be his real view.
"It's exactly as ridiculous to claim that it's not rape purely because both parties were too drunk to realise that neither could grant consent."
I don't think the thought experiment case is ridiculous at all; due to the symmetry the only logical alternatives are that both are rapists of neither is.
Are you again trying to mix this up with other, asymmetric, cases?
Where is he only applying it to a case where both parties are drunk?
Immediately afterward he only applies it to the thought experiment with both drunk. His later questions about the study again mentioned "numbers might be skewed by cases where both parties were drunk". No mention of anything like "numbers might be skewed by cases where the 'rapist' was drunk", even though that would be an obvious consequence. Generally no discussion of the full consequences, even though they would be remarkable.
"He doesn't say it's ok. He just says it's not rape."
I doubt alcohol would make him stop considering it rape from non-legal terminology perspective, and I'd expect him to say something about it if he thought there was a difference in this case.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-09 04:46 am (UTC)You're basing this asymmetry argument entirely on the belief that Ted meant something other than what he said. Get Ted to say that and I'll pay attention to it.
Of course - he's questioning it in the context of women not themselves classifying the attacks as rape.
Ted says . He doesn't say "Legally, no rape has taken place". He doesn't say "Many people would not regard this as rape". He doesn't draw a distinction between legal and non-legal terminology. He clearly and explicitly says that if both parties are drunk, it's not rape.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-09 06:15 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
From:Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-09 11:24 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
From:Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-10 06:51 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
From:Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-11 02:35 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
From:Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-12 09:53 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
From:Re: My overall take on the discussion
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2012-11-13 07:38 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: My overall take on the discussion
Date: 2012-11-06 03:15 am (UTC)This is false."
Nope, I'm afraid it's true. Direct quotation time again:
"Now suppose Alice is also drunk. Now did she rape Bob? Or did Bob rape Alice now? Or did Alice and Bob rape each other? Let's throw them both in jail!
Now, actually, the way the law works is that not only does the being raped be not able to give consent, but that the rapist has to know that the the other person was not able to give legal consent. So if both Alice and Bob were drunk, there's no rape that has taken place, in either direction. Whew!"
That seems a fairly clear statement that it's not rape if both people are drunk, to me.
""Ted questioned what should be called rape, so he must be against sentencing anyone as a rapist"
This is obviously false as phrased, yet there were various claims that essentially boil down to this."
Well no, they don't. I'm afraid that it's possible for your statements about rape to be intensely problematic and scary to women even if you keep protesting that rapists should be prosecuted. Hate to break it to you, but there it is. Neither Matt's nor my comments about Ted embody the sentiment you appear to be trying to put in our mouths.
"I hope nobody seriously thinks it's OK for them to attack Ted and label him a "rape apologist" just because he's not helping them push their views."
Nice job of conflating two issues, there. There are nearly 200 comments in this thread. You can't plausibly assume that every criticism of Ted must necessarily be in the context of the accusation of 'rape apology'. They aren't. You can't take discussions of Ted's behaviour outside of that context and drag them into that context. It is flawed reasoning. The 'rape apology' accusation is perfectly clear and specific.
-adamw